Volume 52 Issue 10 - October 2014 : Feature

After years of a city life that made me feel like an orphan chasing after shadows of long gone parents, I incidentally came to this place that allowed me recollection. Tranquility and happiness here seem to be in abundance.  I realised how we often get up in the turmoil of our busy life to succumb to self-induced pressure while neglecting real life that often hides itself in places that we hardly think off. 

It took us two hours meandering through the deep waters of the Okavango Delta, speeding on a boat past reeds that seemed to find solace in each other until we arrived at Jhao but commonly known as Jhao flats. It was twilight and the setting sun gave this Island a somewhat reddish appearance that reflected on the deep waters that sorround it, creating the most amazing piece of living art.

 As we alighted the boat, a cold breeze made us feel like we had certainly crossed a border from a place of turmoil to one of peaceful living. It was like no other place I had seen on earth. Before I set foot here, my most serene moments had been in Kasane but when I walked into that endless atmosphere of calm and quietness, somehow, as If by a stroke of magic, I felt a veil of all my troubles melting away.

The sight of elephants and hippos along the river, the shrill laughter of children playing and sweet sounds of birds singing, confirmed that indeed Jhao is a place where nature comes to peace with itself. As we arrive we are met by the Island`s traditional leader, Johanne Xhokwe, who walks us through the place like a man showing his visitors his field. In less than half an hour, we have already covered all the boundaries of the island and have met almost all the residents who totaled to not more than 200. 

“There are not many people here, this time around our children are at school,” Xhokwe informs us. We walked on the river bank under the shadows of palm trees and immersed ourselves in the sweet scent of shrubs and other species of the river, occasionally stopping to watch Flamingoes and other birds resident in the waters scramble for their evening meal, while, as if by instinct, the vast waters drifted away with unparalleled calmness.

“Here we live in peace with these animals. They come even close to our houses at night. Tonight elephants were nibbling at the roof my hut but we chased them away,” he explains. Looking at the few residents, many of whom, under the shades of trees in front of their compound, it dawned on me that Jhao is a place that allows for a recollection of the mind and the realm of the self, a place that is an ideal habitat for great thinkers. 

 Can you imagine a place where there are no cars, no bicycles, no motor cycles, let alone donkey carts but where you only rely on your feet for local journeys and a boat if you are to escape the outside! A place where the only domestic animals are goats that nonetheless amount to not more than ten and the only mode of transport is a boat. 

Ironically, while I find this place not easily accessible, Kgosi Xokwe says it is as easy as an educated man reading a newspaper. “For you it`s difficult but since we were born and bred here, that is not a worry at us, instead we find going to Gaborone a tiresome activity,” he quips. 

 “It`s a peaceful and tranquil place, that is why we can`t leave it for developed places,” reckons Kgosi Xokwe. However, he says they live under fear that if government did not speed up developments here, one day Jhao will find itself in the hands of unscrupulous businessmen. “If they come here to build lodges or acquire residential plots, they will easily displace us,” he says. ENDS

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